Comparison of NSNumber literals

Question

I really like the new literals in Objective-C. I am wondering if with the new additions there's a better way to compare numbers.

For example, if I want to compare a and b:

a = @1;
b = @2;

Is the only way to compare them like this:

[a intValue] > [b intValue]

Or are there better, more elegant, solutions?

Answer 1

For equality checks, you can use isEqualToNumber which checks if either the id or content is equal (with the latter using compare):

if ([a isEqualToNumber:b])                  // if a == b

Not sure why they also didn't implement isGreaterThanNumber and isLessThanNumber convenience methods (and possibly >= and <= as well), since the compare method below seems a little clunky.

For inequality checks, just use compare directly (you can also do this for equality as can be seen from the first one below):

if ([a compare:b] == NSOrderedSame)         // if (a == b)
if ([a compare:b] == NSOrderedAscending)    // if (a <  b)
if ([a compare:b] == NSOrderedDescending)   // if (a >  b)

if ([a compare:b] != NSOrderedSame)         // if (a != b)
if ([a compare:b] != NSOrderedAscending)    // if (a >= b)
if ([a compare:b] != NSOrderedSescending)   // if (a <= b)

Details can be found on the NSNumber class documentation page.

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Keep in mind there's nothing preventing you from creating your own helper function which would, for example, allow code like:

if (nsnComp1 (a, ">=", b)) ... // returns true/false (yes/no)

or:

if (nsnComp2 (a, b) >= 0)  ... // returns -1/0/+1

even though it's less Objective-C and more C :-) It depends on whether your definition of "elegant" is bound mostly by efficiency or readability. Whether that's preferable to your intValue option is a decision you'll need to make yourself.